a thousand winters
by The13thVasilisa
Summary: four years after Tecna's disappearance in the Omega Dimension and the disbanding of the Winx Club, Timmy seems to be the only one who hasn't moved on. When Omega is scheduled for destruction, Roxy, struggling with her own past, joins him in his search. But the renewed interest in the tragedy has consequences for everyone as they're forced to face their demons. [rewrite of Cloud]
1. and it breaks my heart

**title: a thousand winters**

 **rating: T**

 **summary:** **four years after Tecna's disappearance in the Omega Dimension and the disbanding of the Winx Club, Timmy seems to be the only one who hasn't moved on. Roxy, trying to outrun her own demons, joins him on his quest for the truth, even as time is running out. Maybe the search will fix everything that's been broken. Maybe questions are better left unanswered.**

* * *

 **Hey everyone! If you hadn't guessed, this is a revised version of my earlier story 'Cloud'. I started that one without really knowing where I was going with it, but suddenly had inspiration after like five years and started writing it again a little while ago. And my old writing style does not at all fit with what I do now, so that's changing, as well as a couple plot elements. Well, actually most of the plot elements because (lol) what u see on Cloud is what there was. I literally had no idea where that story was going to go from. That was it. I'm leaving Cloud up because I don't like it as a whole but I think I got some good one-liners in that might not fit in this narrative. don't read it though. It sucks. Also, why was it called Cloud? Because I thought that was a cool sounding title. At no point in the story were there ever going to be any clouds. I was wild back then.**

 **Anyway, be sure to read and review and let me know what you guys think! Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 ** _the imperial palace_**

 ** _eraklyon_ **

* * *

Bloom had been taking an internet quiz about the color of her aura when the news broke in the form of a sidebar headline.

Immediately she called out for Sky, her eyes never leaving the words on the screen. He didn't come so she yelled louder, and there must have been something in her voice this time that scared him, because he came skidding into the room with his sword half-drawn.

Before he could even look annoyed about the false alarm she said, "they're destroying Omega."

"No." Sky crossed the room quickly to stare at the screen. "No, they're not. They don't have the votes. They never have the votes."

"Yeah, they're expected to. And the new Governor of Magix is for it, and the new queen of Kast is for it, so that makes nine out of seventeen planets voting in favor." Bloom followed his gaze to the breaking news story. Maybe because she liked torturing herself, she reread the lines that made her heart hurt, reflecting miserably on the way her heart jumped when she read the familiar name.

 _The obscure prison planet was left unsecured during the Valtor Wars and gained extreme notoriety after Tecna of Zenith, member of the Winx Club, was lost there after closing a portal that threatened the planet Andros. She was declared deceased one year later after three official searches were unable to recover her, though one did find a spatter of her blood in the snow. Half of the third search party also disappeared, though most of their bodies were later found, and as a result, the Omega Dimension was declared closed. No one has been down since._

 _Due to the extreme negative energy and the fact that the planet appears to be getting stronger, the Governor informed press of his intentions to carry out the plan approved by the Interdimensional Security Board: the Omega Dimension will be sealed into a closed plane and remotely vaporized from there. An agreed upon date has not yet been released for the destruction of the planet, but sources say it could take up to a year due to red tape, though if the situation increases in urgency, the timeframe will be sped up._

"You've gotta call Timmy," said Bloom, but then she shook her head. "No. Wait. If he hasn't heard you can't tell him over the phone. Call Brandon—or Riven, or Helia, have them check on him—" suddenly the same stale, tearful anger came over her as always and she balled her hands into fists, and that didn't satisfy anything. "I'd like to destroy that horrible place myself. Set the whole thing on fire. It took her life, and it's taken _his_ , too—"

Sky didn't say anything, but he put his arm around her and she leaned into him. With his other hand he looked down at his phone. She felt like her words were hanging in the air. She had said Brandon first out of habit, still, but she knew he was calling Riven. It wasn't like he could really just call Brandon anymore.

Faintly she heard the other end pick up.

"Hey, Riven," Sky said. "It's me. Have you seen the news?"


	2. do not analyze

_four years ago_

* * *

When she opened her eyes she couldn't remember falling or hitting the ground.

Rather numbly she just lay there in the snow, eyes fixed unseeingly onto the gray sky. Where was she? What had just happened? She had been on Andros, they had all been on Andros. The vortex...she had...this must be the other side of the portal—

then she registered the cold.

It was so _cold_! She scrambled up, not wanting to lay in the snow any longer. Now she realized it had invaded every inch of her being. Even her blood felt cold. The wind blew faintly and it stung with frigidity. She had never been so cold. She wondered if she had ever been so completely anything as she was cold now.

She glanced down and realized with a start that she was no longer in Enchantix form. It must have happened when she hit the ground—how long had she been lying there?

She quickly transformed again, an Enchantix fairy for the second time ever. It was a strange feeling. It was as though she was related to the world differently, as though all the energies around her had shifted. She had imagined getting it, imagined being powerful, but it didn't feel like she thought it would. Different, not better or worse.

Hovering above the snow slightly, she felt warmer in fairy form. That was good. Wherever she was, it was cold, but not supernaturally cold. But where was she?

She ignored the fear rising in the back of her throat. This wasn't the time to be scared. This was the time to be rational. She could feel things later. For now, she had to act. She had to focus on the positive: she had thought she was going to die. Here she was, not dead. That was good. That was a win.

Now that she was observing her surroundings she could see that she had not just fallen onto an open plain, but she was in a sort of canyon or valley, all riddled with small caves, passageways, and cliffs. She had an excellent memory, and this looked familiar.

This wasn't—

No, it would make sense. It made perfect sense that the Omega Dimension would be on the other side of the vortex. They had thought the negative energy was coming from Valtor but it might've been warped by this notoriously glitchy planet, because that was where he was when he cast it. The connection the two planets had must have caused the vortex. She had read up on Omega after the escape had happened. Her surroundings looked uncannily similar to what she had seen.

Alright, so she was in the Omega Dimension. She took a deep breath and continued to not panic or feel anything in particular. She was not going to analyze. Feeling would do nothing for her right now. She was going to act and think rationally.

How was she going to get out of here?


	3. it's alright it's alright it's alright

_magix city_

 _magix_

* * *

"Who was that?" Musa asked before he even hung up.

Riven gave her a look and sat down on the couch beside her. "It was Sky. He heard."

Musa closed her eyes. "Okay."

He looked at her, waiting for her to say something else. But she just opened her eyes again and turned on the television.

She looked over at him, but didn't say anything. Neither of them said anything.

* * *

It was past midnight by the time Stella got home, and there was a message from Bloom on her personal phone, which she'd left there all night. "Hi, Stella. It's me. Bloom, I mean. Uh, did you hear the news? Or, if you don't know what I'm talking about I guess you didn't. Um, call me. I don't really feel like saying it in a voice mail. So...yeah. Just call me when you get a—"

The message cut off. What news? From today? She didn't have time to read the news unless it was about her. Everything else, she would know when it happened, and if it didn't, then she didn't have to care.

Stella mechanically pressed Bloom's contact, wondering if voice mails were a holdout from her Earth days. Bloom was absolutely the only person in the universe who left them, excluding telemarketers. She put it on speaker, so she could start taking off her jewelry as it rung, and a moment later, a hologram of Bloom appeared.

"Hey," she said. "How are you? I feel like we haven't talked in forever."

"I'm okay," said Stella. Her necklace clicked on the table of her glass vanity. "What's up?"

It wasn't until she saw the flash of hurt in Bloom's (holographic) face that she realized her mistake, but by then it was too late to say anything. Oh, well. She was busy. It wasn't like she was going to find a minute to talk to Bloom anytime soon anyway, apart from this thing that was supposed to be an emergency—oh, _shit_! Had someone died?

"Did someone die?" She said immediately, before Bloom opened her mouth. "Did someone—" But she shook her head quickly, and once again Stella's interest in the conversation flagged to its normal level. She was so tired.

"No one died. But on the news they're saying that Magix has voted to destroy the Omega Dimension at latest by next year. So it's gonna be...gone."

Oh. She sighed. "That sucks."

"Yeah," said Bloom. And then they just sat there for a second. Then Bloom started to say, "It's really—"

"I feel like I should send flowers. Should I send flowers?" Stella asked suddenly. She realized she had interrupted Bloom. But honestly, if Bloom wanted to be heard she should just keep talking. And she didn't. So it must not have been important.

"Uh, where?"

"To Timmy."

"Flowers?"

"With a card."

Bloom wrinkled her nose. "I don't think so. That seems a little impersonal. Even for you."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. But you could just call him and ask how he is. That's what the rest of us are doing, and Brandon and—uh, he and Riven are going to check on him."

"You can say his name, I don't care," Stella muttered. Then, louder, she said, "well, I don't have time tomorrow and it's already too late to call today."

"I picked up," said Bloom.

"Yeah," said Stella.

She didn't say anything for a second. Bloom didn't either. Then she said, "I should go. Bye."

"Bye," said Bloom.

She hung up. The little holograph shimmered and then faded away.

Stella took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was hot behind her eyelids. It was cold in her room. She didn't want to think about anything, she didn't want to think about anything, she didn't want to think about anything.


	4. take a fall

_four years ago_

Portals proved unsuccessful, even using fairy dust and the new power that came with having an Enchantix. That had been expected but she had figured she should try it before she did anything else. But that was out. Finding the actual portal out of Omega was useless because she had just sealed it forever. That left Tecna with two options: create a way out, somehow, or wait for her friends to come looking for her.

Would her friends come looking for her?

Before she could decide on the probability, she was overwhelmed by emotion, by the thought that _of course they would_. Of course they would. Her friends and Timmy. They loved her. They were probably looking for her right now.

With some effort she took a deep breath and pushed those feelings away. Now was not the time. Feelings aside, would her friends be looking for her? Yes, if they thought she was alive. No, if they thought she was dead. What were the chances of that?

And even if they did look, how would they know to do so in Omega?

And if they did so in Omega, how would they even find her?

For a second she was overwhelmed by the data.

No. _No_. Do not analyze. Tecna resisted the feelings of despair that were again seeping into her thoughts. It didn't seem like a good idea to depend solely on being found by her friends. (Of course they would look for her. They loved her.) But the odds were much better if she got herself out, so she would have to do that.

She didn't feel like she had the energy to come up with anything right then. Her head was hurting, and all of the white on the snow and the ice felt like she had been staring at a screen for way too long. Tecna didn't typically maintain a transformation for hours at a time, and it was making her kind of tired.

She was going to have to survive here until she found some way to escape. That necessitated food, and—she glanced around. This area was secluded, since she had gone to the deepest part of the canyon to try a portal, but the gaping opening made her uneasy. She needed somewhere securable.

What were the characteristics of Omega? Snow and ice everywhere. Patrolled by monsters, ones designed by the prison and ones that had mutated as a result of the glitchy, negative energy. Filled with prisoners, although if the Trix had broken out so quickly it would be natural to assume that there might be more escapees around, in which case, she needed to find defensible shelter sooner than later. Then she would worry about everything else.

* * *

 **Magix City Daily**

 **Alfea Fairy Disappeared From Andros**

 _by Kalissa of Magix_

 _Tecna of Zenith, a third year Alfea student, has been missing since yesterday, when she entered and then fell into the vortex on Andros. Recordings of the scene have been emerging since, which appear to show the technology fairy voluntarily entering the vortex, which had been threatening the existence of Andros, and gaining her Enchantix as she does so. She is then pulled into the vortex and falls._

 _The vortex was not fully understood when it was threatening Andros, and Tecna of Zenith is now presumed dead, as it is assumed it lead to a closed plane or nether-dimension, but research is still underway to discover the exact makeup. But the outlook is not good, according to portal and teleporting expert Sancha of Solaria. "The vortex was the result of dark and destabilized magic, which will greatly hinder efforts to identify it. It is highly likely that because of its aberration origin, it lead nowhere—that is, when it closed, it ceased to exist. And if it ceased to exist, it's likely so did Tecna of Zenith."_

 _In a joint statement issued in central Magix today, Alfea's Headmistress Faragonda and Red Fountain's Headmaster Saladin expressed their sorrow and asked the press to leave their students alone to process the event, saying, "we hope entirely for a positive outcome to this tragic event, and that Tecna will be reunited with us again. In the meantime we ask that our students be given time and space in the wake of this sad development in the current conflict."_

 _Tecna of Zenith's parents, XemTech founders Morela and Roman of Zenith, could not be reached for comment at this time._

 _Tecna has been involved in much of the resistance against Valtor this past year, and is a part of a group of students who call themselves the Winx Club._

 _The Androsi royal family could not be reached for comment at this time. The heiress to the Androsi throne is Princess Aisha, a member of the Winx Club and roommate of Tecna of Zenith at Alfea._


	5. one more time with feeling

_downtown magix_

 _magix_

* * *

"It's open!"

Brandon pushed open the door. "Hey dude," he called as he followed Riven inside. "It's us." Timmy's apartment was well-kept and normal looking, certainly up to Brandon's own fairly low standards, but he had to swallow the sense of dread he always felt crossing the threshold.

"Hey," said Timmy as he came into the room. Brandon analyzed his friend's appearance instantly, as though he were evaluating some kind of situation at Redfountain. Like any given Redfountain situation, he had expected it to be a disaster, but instead Timmy looked fine. Shaved. Dressed normally. Not overly tired or sleep deprived. Not so carefully put together it was a front for his friends. Still, he wasn't comforted. "How have you guys been?"

"Good," said Riven, quickly glancing at Brandon. He had obviously observed the same things.

"Good," said Brandon. "We came to see how you were."

"I said I was fine when you guys called," Timmy said with a frown. "Not that it's not good to see you two, but I wish you'd believe me."

"But you haven't stopped with this," Riven said somewhat quietly. There was an undertone of anger in his voice, which Brandon supposed was better than an overtone of anger. They were both looking at the floor.

There was a tense silence. A hundred old arguments ranging from quiet and sympathetic to yelling and harsh hung in the air. They had been over everything before. Brandon knew that right now they were in the 'fragile truce' stage of the argument, in which everyone pretended everything was fine and no one said anything too controversial.

They had been understanding. Hell, they had been in agreement for the first year—everyone had been looking, everyone had been helping. Everyone had been ignoring the way that this was splintering them apart. And after they had finally realized the awful truth—that she was dead, and that she was not coming back, not going to be found—they had still been understanding. But as the years dragged on they had found themselves in a long and miserable cycle: where they'd argue with Timmy, beg him to stop this and listen to reason, everyone would get mad at each other, everyone would stay like that for a bit, then someone would cave, they'd have a short, sad discussion, a fragile truce would be called, and then the dam would break and the cycle would start again.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Timmy said flatly. "And I don't even know what to say about the news. They can't destroy Omega. They..." he trailed off blankly, dropping the nonchalant front. Brandon forgot his frustration.

It drove him crazy to see his friend so obviously still hurting and 'coping' in a way that didn't help him or anyone else. He knew Helia and Riven felt the same way, not to mention how much Musa and the other girls had been destroyed by the whole thing. Everything had been destroyed by this.

Of course they got angry sometimes. They were all just powerless to do anything about anything.

He couldn't even find anything helpful to say right now. Thankfully Riven stepped in. "We came to say we were sorry about the news. It really sucks, man."

"Yeah," Brandon added lamely, but then had nothing else.

Timmy shook his head, taking on a more determined look. "I'm still working on it. I know I'm right—I'm not stopping because of this."

That wasn't at all a surprise, but still he saw Riven scowl. But instead of saying anything and moving into the argument phase of the cycle, he just closed his eyes for a second. "Fine. Whatever. We figured. We just..." he didn't finish the sentence. Brandon felt like they never finished their sentences around each other anymore.

Brandon and Riven hung out for a few more terse minutes before they left and stood for a moment on the pavement outside the apartment.

"I hate being the jerk who keeps saying it," Brandon said.

"We're his friends. It's our job to try to get him to move on." Riven replied, but he didn't look any happier than Brandon felt.

"That's true. Hey, we Specialists have to stick together," he said, and smiled a little as he said the world 'Specialists', but it felt hollow.

"Only two of us here today," Riven said.

"Yeah. So you never heard back from Helia?"

"No. I figure he's still busy. He'll probably come down later. And Sky's Sky. You know. He called."

Brandon nodded, not really feeling like spending too much time on the topic. At least Sky was accounted for, which was more than Helia. "Uh, how's Musa?"

Riven grimaced but then adopted a neutral expression. "She's...okay. She's fine. You'll see her at Aisha's party, right?"

"No, actually. Turns out Codatorta isn't giving me the days."

Riven nodded. "That sucks. Right, I'll see you Monday, then."

"See you."

Riven walked to his levebike and Brandon walked to his craft.

* * *

 _alfea_

 _magix_

* * *

"Come in, Roxy," Faragonda called from her desk.

Hesitantly the animal fairy entered the room and sat down in front of her Headmistress. She didn't say anything, waiting for an explanation.

"I'm sorry if I seemed cryptic, calling you here. I wanted to ask how you were doing."

Roxy nodded, trying not to look relieved. There was always a faint fear of expulsion in the back of her mind. "I'm good. I'm fine."

Faragonda cast her eyes to the bag at her side. "Are you leaving for the weekend?"

She nodded. "I'm going to Andros for Aisha's party. Brandon's picking me up after this."

"How fun," she said, smiling brightly. "Please, sit down, Roxy. I was hoping we could talk about how your classes are going." Oh. So this was what it was about. "I see you're doing well in Organic Magic, Animation and Glamour, and Environmental Science," she continued, staring down at what appeared to be her transcript. "But it looks like you're having some trouble with your Cursebreaking and Defense classes." She looked back up at Roxy, waiting for her to speak.

She blinked. "Yeah. I'm trying really hard. I'm seeing if I can get some extra credit for Cursebreaking—"

"I'm not asking you to defend yourself, dear. No one is accusing you of not working hard. But when I look at this, I notice that all the classes you're doing well in have a major written component, and both of the other classes focus heavily on practical exams."

Roxy actually knew why that was, although she wasn't sure how to put it delicately. But she felt like she should be honest. "You know, Headmistress, I don't think I'm very good at actually doing magic." Even as she was saying the words she thought it was a bad idea. Adults, especially teachers, could never accept when you just weren't good at something.

"I wish you wouldn't say that," Faragonda said with a concerned frown. True to form. "You're doing very well in the majority of your classes. I only wonder if we could identify what you need help with to help you succeed. And I wanted to make sure everything else was alright." She reached across the desk and took Roxy's hand, which was surprisingly comforting. "You made the right choice by coming here, Roxy, and by deciding to give magic another chance after everything that happened."

Her sympathetic eyes and cold hands suddenly made Roxy feel like the room was falling down on her. "I'm not failing because I'm, like, traumatized for anything," she blurted out, immediately wishing she could take it back. "I mean..." there was nothing she could do at this point. "I'm okay. I'm just not that good at doing magic. I want to be a fairy. But...I don't know. I want to be a fairy."

"No one thinks you're traumatized, Roxy, we just want what's best for you. Have you given any more thought to what Professor DuFour said?"

"I haven't really come up with any ideas," she admitted. She was ridiculous. Not only was she literally failing out of remedial fairy school, but she didn't even know what she wanted to do afterwards.

"Didn't you have any dreams when you lived on Earth?"

It seemed silly to admit now, but she forced herself, because at least this time she had an answer. "I wanted to run an animal sanctuary. Or at least work on one. Being a vet had, uh, too much math."

"There are animal sanctuaries in the Magical Dimension," Faragonda said.

"I don't want to do that anymore," Roxy said.

"Why not?" Faragonda asked, which was the same question Roxy had been asking herself ever since she had gotten here.

"I don't really know." _Because I'm paralyzed. Because I'm tired. Because I'm not good at anything. Because I want to go home. Because I can't go home and have anything be the same ever again. Because I gave up my whole life on Earth for this and I still don't fit in and I don't know what I want and I don't have anything and I haven't seen my dog in months._

Faragonda looked almost sad to hear that, which mirrored how Roxy felt inside. "There are options to continue school," she said. "For higher education, for animal professions."

"Yeah," she said, and her voice caught and came out like a whisper.

Faragonda looked at her for a long moment as though she was trying to read a sign that was just a touch too far away. Then she said, "I want you to think about talking to someone. Maybe Nurse Ofelia could have a suggestion."

"Okay," she said, nodding, aware she was probably not going to ask. "I'll think about it."

"Really do. Thank you for coming to see me, Roxy. Feel free to come by any time."

"I will," Roxy said, standing up, knowing she would probably not do that. "Have a good day."

She felt so brittle and blank as she walked out of the room and into the courtyard. Everything felt wrong, as usual, and she couldn't figure out why. _Everything is fine. Everything is absolutely fine. Do not feel like this. There is no reason for you to feel like this._

She knew the Headmistress meant well. She felt like everyone was simultaneously surprised at how normal she was, considering the circumstances, and disappointed by how much of a failure she was, considering her pedigree. Everyone on Magix, anyway. Her dad didn't even know who she was anymore. And it was her fault! It was all her fault!

Guilt twisted sharply in her stomach. Now she was thinking about things she didn't want to think about at all. Luckily she didn't have to be alone with her thoughts for too long. Brandon was just coming up to the gate now and she walked to meet him.

"Hey," He greeted as she sat down in the craft.

"Hi," she said, focusing on smiling and not on the things she didn't want to think about. "How's Timmy?"

"He's good."

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't, so she continued. "I would've gone with you if you'd done it later."

"Yeah, I know." Brandon smiled but he also seemed uncomfortable.

"Who else came? Did Musa? I thought I saw her today."

"No. She was busy." He was focused straight ahead and on his driving, but his eyes flicked to her for a moment as though to underline his point. "She doesn't really like talking about the whole Omega Dimension thing."

"Yeah." Roxy hesitated before she asked her next question. "Uh, did they used to date?"

"Timmy and Musa? No way. Why?"

"You said they both had the whole bad history with the Omega Dimension and she doesn't really hang out with him. I just wondered. I mean, I know Flora and Helia used to date and it's super weird now."

"No, they didn't. There was just some stuff a long time ago. It's not important." She thought about being more curious but she didn't feel like it. She always felt like she kind of hit a wall when she asked about Brandon and their friends' own school days. They were great. But they all had a lot of history and sometimes she felt like they kept running into it.

She also knew they were all friends with Brandon's ex, Stella, who she knew but didn't really see much of. Stella hadn't been one of the fairies fighting against the Wizards of the Black Circle. She had met her much later.

"So how was class?" Brandon asked, changing the subject. She didn't mind too much.

"Not great. Fine. I'm looking forward to going to Aisha's tonight."

"Yeah, I was gonna tell you. I can't go to that anymore."

"You can't?" Roxy frowned.

"Yeah. Codatorta's making me cover his third years for midterm prep. I blame Riven for taking off before me. They don't want to lose both of us for the weekend."

"Are you sure it's not cause Sky's gonna be there?" She asked cautiously, not wanting to start an argument.

He frowned sharply. "I don't have a problem with Sky."

"Yeah." She agreed because she knew he wouldn't admit it.

"Tell Aisha happy birthday for me. And say hi to Nabu. And Flora. And Helia."

"Helia's not coming. He's busy."

"That's not a surprise. He couldn't even come today." He sounded kind of mad.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, and he didn't sound completely convincing, but she didn't challenge it. The rest of the ride was quiet.


	6. breakthrough

_four years ago_

* * *

It wasn't until the third time she threw up into the snow that Tecna began to get frustrated.

She hadn't slept at all the night before, partially because she was distracted by the prospect of her first night on a strange, dead planet, but partially because by the end of the night she was starving. She supposed she understood that. All the magic she was doing just to maintain homeostasis was tiring, and she had spent a lot of energy getting here in the first place by entering and closing the vortex on Andros.

Now it was only the next morning, as far as she could figure it. The Omega Dimension sky never changed from gray. It seemed like it had been an eternity since she stood next to all of her friends on Andros.

Gingerly she allowed herself a brief moment of wondering what her last words had been to Timmy before she left for a mission she didn't know she wouldn't return from. Hadn't they been texting the night before? What about?

No. She was going to be fine as long as she remained calm and rational and stopped letting emotions get in the way of her intelligence. She could not let fear or frustration have any kind of effect on her actions.

And the first step to that was figuring out a food situation.

Water wouldn't be a problem. There was snow and ice everywhere. But transfiguration was a delicate and difficult art, made more delicate and difficult depending on what you were trying to change to what, and how thoroughly you wanted the transfigured item to resemble a final product. Not to mention that everything magic related, and technology related, seemed to be more difficult in Omega. So far, she had succeeded in making some food that looked every much like real food, but was still essentially snow and wouldn't work for nourishment. But succeeding at that seemed to be the only option. Most of the monsters that roamed the dimension were either unknown beings or made mostly of ice and magic, and even though there were a few flesh and blood ones, there was no telling how long it could take to hunt one, if it was even possible. They were probably poisonous, anyway. There had been no reason for her to research how edible the Omega Dimension was, so there was no reason to reprimand herself for not knowing, but she still wished she had read up on it before they had gotten there. It would be useful information now.

She pulled up the screen of the handheld device she kept at her wrist. Fortunately, she had had it when she detransformed and it still worked. Although it wouldn't be able to send any kind of signal, owing to her location, she hypothesized that she might be able to modify it later to be more useful. Now she was using it to test out different, patched together spells to turn the frost into food. Thus far she had three failed attempts.

This was her problem. She wasn't creative. Yes, she had new ideas and contributions to magic, but that was taking information she already had and applying it in a logical way to a problem to take the solution to the next level of what was possible. There was no information available now. She was just trying, half randomly, stitching together transfiguration magic and whatever cooking spells she knew, aware that neither of those things on their own would turn something with no nutritional content into viable food options. She was doing something wrong. She knew she was doing something wrong. Even her latest, most successful attempt, which turned lumps of snow into something that vaguely resembled bread, was still nutritionally and texturally snow...and something else had gone wrong because the magic obviously didn't agree with her.

She crossed off the last idea but instead of immediately starting on the next, she sat down against the icy wall of the cavern she was hiding in for now. She would find better shelter once she was sure she knew where her food was coming from. For a second she was struck by the immensity of her solitude. There was absolutely nothing. She had absolutely nothing.

And nothing was what would come from dwelling on that harsh reality. She shook her head. She needed to take the information available and from there figure out the solution to her problem. She needed to state it clearly.

She stared at the words on her holographic display, where they blinked above her. Need food. Problem: how to change snow to real food with magic. Solution:

There had to be something she wasn't seeing. And she probably wasn't seeing it because she was distracted. And hungry. And tired from using so much magic, plus being sleep deprived. And hungry.

She closed her eyes. If this was at Alfea and she was figuring out a problem, she'd have half her wall covered with projected displays to have all her ideas worked out in front of her. Here, she only had her handheld, and no ideas.

Maybe she was seeing this the wrong way. Maybe she didn't need to find the right spell, just the right way to cast it. Ice was a food item, technically. She wasn't changing a foreign object into food, she was transforming food into different food. That wasn't so hard, she told herself.

Could the solution be found in taking it slower, in smaller and simpler steps? Instead of immediately going for staple foods, she could start with food similar to ice. She could melt water. She could change water into...lemonade. Yes, lemonade was perfect. That spell was simple and it opened up a world of possibilities. She could change lemonade into lemons. She could change lemons into apples.

Her fingers batted the air as she typed into the display: Attempt #4: increase food's disparity with source (ice) in increments.

Although she had been exhausted just moments before, the simplicity of this new idea gave her a second wave of energy and in only a few short minutes she was holding an apple in her hand—not an apple-shaped snowball but an actual apple, nutritionally legitimate as confirmed by her handheld. She was so hungry she bit into it before even logging the new data.

It wasn't the best apple. It was a little bitter and tough. But no matter. Just like any magic, it would get better and faster with practice, and what mattered now was that she wasn't going to starve to death. If only the rest of her problems could be solved as quickly and easily.


	7. had really been something

_summer palace_

 _andros_

* * *

"Musa!" Aisha cried, half-leaping across the room to throw her arms around the musical fairy. "Oh! And Roxy! I'm so glad you're both here!" She whirled halfway around to hug Roxy as well, and Roxy tried not to be stiff.

"Hi, guys!" Flora was right behind her to greet the girls with hugs as well. "I've missed you both so much! How's Alfea? How are Brandon and Riven?"

"Where are Brandon and Riven?" Aisha asked as they all headed for the chairs and couches in he middle of the drawing room. "We can wait for dinner if they're gonna be late."

"Brandon couldn't make it," Roxy said. "Something about midterms and extra tutoring hours. He says 'happy birthday'."

"Riven should be here in a couple hours," Musa added. "We don't have to wait for him. He said he'd pick something up on the way."

"Okay, cool," said Aisha, standing back up. "Nabu's not coming til later, too. He has a tutoring session. Anyone want a soda or water or something?"

"I'll take water," said Roxy. Magical Dimension soda tasted weird. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Just another thing that was different here. Aisha tossed her a bottle of water and she scrambled to catch it.

"I thought we were having a party!" Musa said laughingly. "If you drink soda at a sleepover you might as well be ten."

Aisha gave a small laugh. "Well, you know where everything else is."

Musa nodded and started towards the table with glass bottles on it across the room. "You want anything, Roxy? Flora? Aisha?"

"I'm okay," Aisha and Flora said at the same time. Roxy said, "uh, sure." She had only tasted Magic Dimension alcohol a few times before and had never really taken to it. But she was trying to have fun tonight. The whole day after meeting with Faragonda—the whole trip over with Musa—she had felt awful. Whenever she thought too hard about things it ruined the day. But she didn't want the day to be ruined, and she really didn't want to be a drag at Aisha's birthday. Aisha, Bloom, Flora, and Musa were the only friends she had in the Magic Dimension, although sometimes she worried it was less friendship and more obligation to the girl they'd rescued. And she rarely saw Aisha, Bloom, and Flora—Aisha and Bloom were busy princessing on their respective planets, while Flora lived on Linphea now.

She reminded herself that she wasn't doing this today and let Musa put a drink in her hand. It was cold and pale green and fizzed slightly. She gingerly sniffed it while tuning back into the conversation that she'd drowned out with her thoughts.

"So Flora, how's..." Aisha paused for a second to remember. "Julian?"

"Who's Julian?" Roxy asked, and for just a second, confusion flickered in Flora's eyes, as if she was wondering the same thing.

Then she blinked. "Uh, Julian's the guy I've been seeing at home. And he's fine. He's nice."

"Oh, that's—" Aisha said pleasantly.

"It's not serious," she said quickly.

"Well, maybe you should bring him when we hang out sometime. Go on a quadruple date," Musa suggested.

Flora laughed awkwardly. "I—no, no. It's way too casual for that. How are classes going, Roxy?"

Inwardly Roxy sighed but everyone went along with the blatant attempt to change the subject. She debated whether or not to lie. She didn't want pity, especially since Musa was a teacher. "They're okay. Right now I'm having some trouble in a few but the professors are being really nice."

"What about you, Musa? Have you guys set a date yet?" Flora asked.

"I still can't believe you and Riven are the first out of all of us to get engaged," Aisha remarked. "I would've thought Sky and Bloom for sure." Musa and Riven had gotten engaged almost a year before.

"We're not thinking about dates yet. I haven't even started thinking of that," said Musa. "As for Sky and Bloom, I'm sure his mom's making him drag his feet. Bloom's practically the princess of Eraklyon already."

"And I think Stella was the first to get engaged, actually," Flora said. "Her and Prince Adon." The atmosphere grew a bit awkward.

Roxy didn't really know anything about Stella of Solaria, since Brandon was her main source of information about their friends' lives before Roxy had met them, and she didn't want to be the girl who kept asking about his ex. On the rare occasion that they met, she had always been nice. A little superficial. She had dropped out of Alfea in the other girls' last year, so she hadn't been a part of the whole Black Circle thing at all.

No one was still saying anything, and she wasn't sure what to say to express that it wasn't awkward to hear about her boyfriend's ex, so instead she took a sip of the green drink Musa had given her. It was kind of bitter and made the inside of her chest feel warm, but didn't taste as bad as the beer she'd occasionally snuck in high school, her main experience with Earth alcohol.

"This is really good," she said to Musa, even though it was just okay, trying to break the silence. "What's it called?"

"You like it?" Musa asked. "It's called Brilliant. Made with troll blood, that's why it's green."

Roxy couldn't hide her immediate, repulsed expression, while caused Musa to break out laughing.

"Musa, that's disgusting! Roxy, she's kidding, it's green 'cause it's made with Gilliflower leaves," Flora said, giving Musa a warning look. "She did the same thing to Bloom the first time she tried it."

"I can't help it!" Musa laughed. "Sorry, Roxy, sorry. Refresh your drink?"

Roxy grinned, not wanting to seem less in on the joke than she already did. "No, I'm okay, thanks. I would think anything related to a troll would smell a lot worse!" Inwardly she cringed at her very lame comment. Musa shrugged and refilled her own drink.

Aisha rolled her eyes at all of them and their silliness. "Anyway! Roxy, does Palladium still grade on a curve?"

* * *

A few hours later, the gathering was in a bit fuller swing. Nabu had arrived, and he and Aisha were trying to teach them all a complicated but entertaining Androsi card game.

There was music drifting across the room and people were laughing. Roxy felt a bit more at ease, probably helped by the fact that she'd finished the Brilliant. The game reminded her of poker, if it was played with tarot cards and magic was involved, and that made it a bit easier—she knew how to play poker. Flora was catching on quickly. Musa was not, and in fact was acting kind of strange; she kept getting distracted and snapping at people for no reason. Roxy wondered if it was because Riven still wasn't there.

Providentially, he called just a few minutes later. She expected the music fairy to excuse herself, but instead Musa didn't get up from the table where they were playing, just accepting the call.

Before she could say anything, the flickering image of Riven spoke. "Hey, babe. It looks like I'm not going to be able to make it this weekend. I'm needed at Red Fountain."

Musa frowned. "Really?"

"Yeah. Some sophomore punks did something stupid, fucked with one of the dragons. I need to—"

"Where are you actually?" She interrupted, narrowing her eyes at him.

Roxy glanced around the rest of the table to see everyone else also meeting each other's eyes. At least she wasn't the only one who felt awkward.

"What?" Riven sounded annoyed.

"Roxy told me that _Brandon_ was needed at Red Fountain and couldn't come to Andros. So where are you actually?" Musa wasn't shouting, but her tone of voice suggested that was not too far off.

"I just said." Riven also seemed to be on the brink of an all out argument. Roxy glanced around the table, now desperately, to see if anyone would suggest slipping out of the room. But now everyone was just staring very hard at the pile of cards on the table. "I'm at Red Fountain too. They thought they wouldn't need us both, and now they do. Brandon just left for the night. I'm walking to my craft now."

"You're with Jordanna, aren't you?" Musa said into the phone. She looked furious.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Riven SOUNDED furious.

"Are you not with her? Because you're not at Red Fountain. I know you're not." As the conversation escalated further, Flora gave them all a look and they tried to move to the nearby couches as discreetly as possible. Unfortunately they could still hear everything, or at least Roxy could. Aisha whispered something to Nabu and he jumped ship and left the room. But Flora and Aisha didn't go, so Roxy felt like she also had to stay and just endure the argument.

"I'm heading home. To our home, by myself. And I'm not justifying that to you. You want to call Brandon, call him. You don't trust me at all, fine." Roxy hoped that she wasn't going to have to call Brandon and be brought into this. But then again, maybe if it stopped whatever was going on here it was a good idea to call him. She pulled his number up in her phone just in case.

"I saw the way you were looking at her earlier!" Musa cried. Roxy vaguely remembered that Jordanna was the new nurse at Red Fountain. She was about their age, but blonde and bubbly; not really Riven's type at all, in her opinion.

"Damn it, Musa! I'm not going through this again!"

"Because you know I'm right!"

"Because I'm not going through this again! Because you always think the worst of me, and I have never done anything like what you—"

"Oh come on! I know you think I'm stupid, Riven—I know you think I'm really stupid, but I'm not that stupid!" Now Musa was definitely yelling into the phone.

"Why would I think you're stupid? Do you want me to ask you about that guy at the bar? Because I can ask about it if you're going to accuse me of being—" Riven matched her volume, which was kind of impressive since he was over the phone and Musa was present in real life.

"Ugh, you know there wasn't anything going on there! I have never done anything like that! This isn't cause I'm angry, it's because I'm right, I know what's going on!" She seemed almost hysterical.

"No, Musa, it's because you never stop with this!" Riven said loudly. "You never stop with this anymore! And you're—ugh, I'm not talking to you when you're like this."

Musa was about to respond but he hung up, the hologram disappearing with a snap. Angrily she slammed her phone down on the coffee table.

"You okay?" Aisha said.

"I'm fine!" Musa snapped, reaching for her drink. "I'm fine. He's an asshole. He's always been an asshole. I'm done with him. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm really done." She turned towards the couch like the reason they'd all sat there wasn't because she was having an argument with her boyfriend.

"Good," Aisha said, raising one eyebrow, not taking her words seriously.

Musa slammed her glass, which was empty, back onto the table and started to gesture animatedly with her hands. "He's such an asshole. He's always like this, and I know...I know...ugh.

"I get that we can't do anything about the past, okay? I get it! But nothing is good anymore! Everything is broken, everything started breaking and we couldn't do anything."

Flora and Aisha gave each other looks, obviously preparing for a long ramble.

"We keep saying we had to move on, move on, just accept it and move in. How the fuck am I supposed to move on from that? You can't ever stop thinking that maybe—that—that..." she took a deep breath and shook her head. "You know, that...you know. Everything got so awful. Everything's so awful. I think about it every day. How the fuck am I not supposed to do that?"

"Musa—" Aisha extended her arms to her and acted as though she were going to pull her friend down onto the couch, but Musa abruptly pushed her back, then stepped away, snatching her phone back up.

"Just leave me alone. I'm calling Riven back."

Flora, who was behind her, reached out and pulled her phone out of her hands. "You're not calling Riven. You just did that. Just calm down."

Roxy sat on the chair, watching all of this happen. She had known Musa liked to have a good time, and that drinking was usually involved. In fact, she very often saw Musa with a drink in her hand, sometimes even during the daytime. But she hadn't thought that she got, like... _drunk_.

"No!" Musa reached for her phone and Flora refused to relinquish it. "I need to call Riven and tell him what an asshole he is."

"He knows," Aisha said. "Trust me."

Musa remained stubborn. "I'm breaking up with him. We're not getting married. Give me my phone!"

"You're not breaking up with him," Aisha snapped, losing patience. "You're going to bed."

She seemed to seriously consider the idea for a moment, but then shook her head. "I'll go to bed after I break up with him."

"Go to bed now," Flora said, putting her hands on Musa's shoulders and pushing her that way.

"You can break up with him in the morning."

Musa was starting to cry. "He's gonna break up with me. I know he is. Everyone leaves me. No one stays with me. I love him so much. My mom is gone, my dad is dead, my best friend is dead—and we don't even—ugh, and everyone else...everyone is gone, why should he stay around?"

"Yes, we've completely abandoned you," Flora murmured, half-pulling her out of the room. "Let's go."

"I love him so much," Musa repeated, sounding completely devastated. "I—I don't think...when did everything get so awful?" Her voice shattered into sobs and she couldn't talk anymore.

Aisha watched them go. Then she sighed deeply.

"Is she okay?"

Aisha jumped, as though she hadn't realized Roxy was still there. She nodded, adopting a calm and unstressed expression. "Sorry you had to see that. She's never like this. She's usually..." she shrugged uncomfortably. "But apparently she and Riven had a bad fight so, you know how it goes." She crossed back to the card table. "Do you want to keep playing when Flora gets back?" It was obvious she was trying to change the subject, but this time Roxy didn't really want to go along.

Musa's mom died when she was little, Roxy knew. She also knew that Musa's dad had died almost three years ago. But...

"I didn't know Musa's best friend died. I thought you guys were her best friends. Was it like a long time ago, or something?" It couldn't have happened in the last couple of years, or Roxy would've known.

Aisha frowned sharply. "Let's not get into it. It's really nothing, and it's getting late."

There was something defensive in her eyes that reminded Roxy of whenever she thought about the Bad Night. That made her keep pushing despite Aisha's dismayed expression. "Musa sounded really upset."

"I told you, she and Riven got in a fight. They do it all the time. They're a disaster. They really should break up and I'd let her do it, if I didn't know she'd be mad in the morning."

"Come on, she was obviously upset about something else."

"Well, I don't think it's really our business."

"Aisha."

Aisha hesitated for a moment, her lips slightly parted, her eyes subtly darting around, and her hands frozen still. Roxy recognized the too-familiar feeling of deciding whether or not to lie.

Then she pressed her lips together and sighed deeply. "The year before we met you one of our friends died. It was in the whole Valtor thing, I'm sure you've heard a little bit about it. Uh, her name was Tecna. And they never..." she gave a long pause, blinking up at the ceiling, and it took Roxy a moment to realize she was trying not to cry. When she spoke again her voice cracked just slightly. "They never found her body. And that made it harder, y'know? Especially for, uh," she took a deep, shuddery breath. "For Timmy. They were dating. He still thinks she's alive. It was really hard on him. Fucking Dragon, I don't know why I can't talk about this today. I'm usually—usually I don't have any problems." She sniffed and ran her hands through her hair. "It's been a long day. But she's not still alive, she's definitely dead. And for some reason, we don't like to talk about it."

There was a long silence.

Everything felt different now, for no reason. Roxy felt like she'd been transported somewhere outside of her body for Aisha's explanation and was only now returning. She had never seen Aisha look so upset. "Oh," she managed to whisper around the lump in her throat.

Aisha looked at Roxy almost angrily, as though she'd done something very wrong. "Nobody wants to talk about this, Roxy. It's better if you don't bring it up again." She suddenly busied herself, walking over to the table and starting to clear up the cards. "Actually, I think we all should go to bed. It's been a long night."

* * *

Except Roxy couldn't sleep.

The spare room in Aisha's castle was possibly the nicest one she'd ever been in. The bed she was sitting on was four poster, with deep blue velvet curtains and a lot of silk pillows. It was so soft she was slightly sunken into the center. And yet instead of sleeping she sat, squinting at her laptop, typing _tecna valtor wars_ into the search bar.

That pulled up a multitude of articles with headlines like _Alfea Student Declared Dead_ and _Fairy Lost In Omega_ , but she only lingered on them for a moment, to find the fairy's full name, before she opened a new tab and started reading more about the dead girl.

It was so weird. Someone had died—someone important to them—and she had never known. Well, maybe it wasn't weird. She didn't know how they acted in the before and after. She knew that something like that changed you, made your life all gray and made you so tired. Maybe everything had been different before. How would she know?

The first page was an online chronicle that seemed to outline the whole of the girl's person. Her life and summary paragraphs were very short. The paragraph under 'death' was very long.

 _Tecna Ciak of Zenith was a technology fairy and Alfea student. She was the daughter of Roman and Morela Ciak, founders of XemTech, and a founding member of the 'Winx Club', a group of Alfea students (Princess Stella of Solaria, Princess Bloom of Sparx, Musa Kane of Melody, Flora Yuce of Linphea, and Princess Aisha of Andros) involved in the Battle of Magix and came into conflict with Valtor of Grim after his escape from the Omega Dimension. The 'Winx Club' was associated with Specialist squad V-06, which notably included both Prince Sky of Eraklyon and Helia of Eiren, grandson of Headmaster Saladin. Tecna of Zenith dated Timothy of Magix, also part of Specialist squad V-06._

 _In closing the vortex that Valtor had created, she herself was lost in the Omega Dimension._

 _As her body was never recovered, she was declared dead on Zenith one year later._

 _Shortly after this, the 'Winx Club' disbanded, and Princess Stella of Solaria did not return to Alfea for their senior year, although the students reportedly remained friends. Several former 'Winx Club' members (Musa of Melody, Princess Bloom of Sparx, Princess Aisha of Andros, and Flora of Linphea) took part in the conflict against the Wizards of the Black Circle when they entered the Magic Dimension._

Roxy wondered why she had never bothered to search for information about her friends' lives before, but then again, she had never really wondered what they were hiding from her. She hadn't thought there WAS anything. She had heard that the girls had all roomed together and participated in stuff like the Battle of Magix, and even heard the name Winx Club thrown around once or twice to refer to them, but hadn't thought much of it.

Maybe everything had seemed just a little bit off, the way everyone tensed up when they talked about Stella—not just because Roxy was now dating her ex, but because although they were nominally friends, things seemed weird between them now. The way it seemed like almost everyone in the wider circle of friends seemed to have a complicated and soured history, either with dating or friendship: Brandon and Sky, Flora and Helia, Timmy and...everyone.

Finding any information about Stella was useless because as a princess and a fashion designer she was famous, and generated a lot of news. Anything from years ago was long buried by new articles about her engagement or reviews about the gowns she was designing. Aisha and Bloom were the same way, as princesses, and because Bloom had grown up on Earth there really wasn't much on her anyway: people had only started noticing her when she claimed her title as Princess of Sparx a few years before. Musa and Flora had very little about them, and it seemed to be the same way with Tecna other than her very public death and the news surrounding it. There wasn't any more information on the Winx Club, either.

For a moment Roxy was tempted to message Brandon, but it was late. Then she thought about putting her laptop away and being done for the night. But she didn't want to sleep. She had forgotten some of her protection crystals in her dorm, and only had one nightmare ward. That made her uneasy.

Instead she went back to Tecna. One of the first articles included a picture of the dead girl. It was jarring to see that. She hadn't thought she was imagining someone when reading all about the girl—the first page didn't had a picture—but still she was surprised by the appearance of the girl. She was pretty, and pale, with large greenish eyes, and smiling in the picture. And they had the same color of hair.

Roxy touched her own hair, which had been long when she had first come to Magix.

She had cut it short during the blended together days and nights after the Bad Night. She vaguely remembered sitting on the bathroom floor and sobbing, staring at herself in the mirror, watching her face crumple and her eyes redden, and now holding a pair of scissors and forcing them through her hair, which she hadn't brushed in so long it was probably matted by now. Afterwards she had sat in a pile of her own rose colored hair and shook.

Now she had a lob that ended just above her shoulders. She didn't want very very short hair, like Tecna from the picture. But she also didn't like how she looked with long hair anymore. She didn't like that girl. She was stupid and made bad decisions and let people die for her when she was the one who deserved to die.

Tecna's hair was very short, almost to her scalp on one side and almost to her chin on the other.

They didn't look anything alike. She knew this. They didn't look anything alike.

But had she ever turned around quickly, and one of them had gotten disoriented for a second, mistaking her for the dead girl? From far away, did they have to blink and remind themselves that no, that wasn't her, because she was dead?

She kept reading long into the night.


	8. the planning stage

_four years ago_

As much as she was tempted to, Tecna did not dwell too long on her victory in obtaining food, because there were more pressing matters at hand—namely that of shelter. Once she had that, she would be able to focus on figuring out how to get off this planet.

But for now—the fact that she was in danger was not yet confirmed. She hadn't seen anyone, man or beast or in between, around yet, which she supposed was a blessing because she wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious upon her first arrival.

She wondered if it would be a good idea to stay close to where she was. After all, she had gone through the vortex on Andros and ended up here, which suggested that this location was the first place where Omega's magic ruptured when Valtor overpowered it. It was a hypothesis, anyway. And if correct, then whatever glitching effect Omega had might be mitigated here.

Cautiously, and keeping close to the sides, she flew out of the canyon in which she had spent her first few days and surveyed her surroundings. The area still appeared to be clear. She wondered how many other inhabitants of Omega there were at all. She recalled her research: there were 549 criminals sentenced to Omega before the breakout; she could count Valtor off the list, and the Trix sisters too, so 545. And grimly, she could not help but think that not all of them could have survived this long. They had to have turned on one another by now, not to mention the monsters which could have gotten them.

Everything was so monolithic here. There was nothing to distinguish the surface of the planet from the valley she had woken in; it was all snow and ice, the gray sky mixing with the grayish weather to make a long swath of nothingness.

The most defensible structure in the vicinity was a cave formed at the top of a nearby rocky hillside. Tecna liked the high ground, and the isolation, and the way the cave was formed: the entrance was small and narrow, but very quickly once inside, the floor sloped downwards and the cave opened into a larger, freer space which was not much smaller than her room at Alfea.

That was the only similarity, though. Not much light came from the narrow entrance, and so until Tecna made an illuminating cloud with a simple lighting spell the place was pitch dark, and the rounded walls and uneven floor were all covered in thick ice. When the chamber was lit, she could see that the space tapered to a jagged close so that she would only be able to stand up in the first half or so of the space before it began to narrow.

But it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon her by mistake here, which was good. She swallowed hard. If people were looking for her, there was a very real possibility they would not find her because she was hiding from those who belonged in the Omega Dimension. She had to face that. If she thought of everything calmly and rationally than none of it would hurt her, or something like that. She knew that was not actually true, but she guided her thoughts over all of the terrible possibilities carefully, like touching a bruise she knew would hurt. Assuming anyone would even come to the Omega Dimension was presumptuous; how would anyone even know she was here? And if they did come, they might end up on the other side of the planet entirely and not be able to navigate to her. And who were 'they'? Her friends? Why would they even look for her? What if they thought she was dead? If she had seen one of them fall through the Andros vortex, she would think they were dead. She had thought she was going to die. She still might—

Once again she was letting her feelings get the better of her. She did not need to be thinking of all of this right now, letting despair and hurt and hope and all of those emotions complicate and hinder her efforts. They were not important or necessary—and in fact, her survival depended on her ability to be calm and rational, evaluate all data and come to logical conclusions.

She gave herself two days to figure out some way to keep warm, to make the cave as habitable and safe as possible. It was likely she could do it in one, but she would go slowly to conserve her magic and her energy. She never knew when she would be called on to use her magic to defend herself. But two days would give her enough time to secure a way to maintain her life while she worked on what was most important: getting home.

Her mind leapt forward with ideas and worry but she forced herself to stay focused on the task at hand. For now she would worry about surviving through the night. Do not analyze. Act.

It did not take her long to figure out that the easiest way to keep warm was to enchant something for herself, and not waste magic and energy maintaining heat for the whole cave. She had never been particularly envious of Bloom's fire powers until now—even Stella's light magic would be warmer than anything that she specialized in.

The amount of magic and energy she was expending just keeping herself warm in her Enchantix was impractical when she wanted to conserve as much as possible. But the only heat spells she knew were no better than what her Enchantix was doing; they all required constant stoking and maintenance...

Hesitantly she thought about the research she had done after Valtor had first appeared on the scene.

She had discussed blood magic with Timmy. She had not planned to discuss it with anyone, but when they had met up all those weeks ago he had seen the notes she had taken on her display and she had explained it to him. Everyone knew that the Cloudtower witches did blood magic despite Magix making it practically illegal without a permit. There was nothing inherently dark about that magic, but fairies still shied away from it and there was practically no data on fairy practitioners of blood magic for non-medical reasons.

But Tecna had been wondering about it. The blood of a magic user carried magic properties itself. When used correctly it could strengthen spells, sometimes exponentially.

She wished she hadn't pulled up the memory of that moment, that day.

She missed him. She missed everyone.

Sitting and missing would not do her any good, though. She realized what she had to do.

It did not take long for her sharpening spell to take effect on the stone she had pried off of the back of the cave floor; she waited until it was totally ready to detransform. She knew, magic or no magic, she was about to be very cold and was not eager to prolong that experience.

As soon as her Enchantix was gone, leaving her colder than before, she pulled her top over her head and threw it on the icy cave floor next to her skirt. Immediately she used the sharpened rock to cut her thumb, and it began to bleed, but not nearly as much as she wanted and quickly she made a cut over her left palm too before pressing her bloody hand to her clothes.

She cast her heat spell to fuse with the blood magic. It would maintain itself without her expending energy from it for a long time, due to the magic in her blood. She had never done it before, but she was sure she was doing everything right, according to the research she had done before—

When her clothes began to change, she was sure she must be doing something correctly. The clothes turned orange-red now, the bloodstains fading into them, and more featureless than they had been, and they...glowed. That was fine, as long as they kept her warm without her having to constantly waste magic on it. She put them on as quickly as possible with her hands shaking from cold.

The orangey glow from the spell covered her whole self once the clothes were on, but she didn't mind. She would have to transform into her Enchantix for anything that might involve stealth anyway, and for now the light was somewhat comforting in the still-dim cave lit only by her spell. Her skin prickled in a nice way from the sudden warmth, which was more comfortable than she had been in days.

But she could not be too pleased. Her hand still hurt. Now that she was no longer cold it seemed a much more serious thing that she had done than she had thought. Blood magic...everything in her said it was a rational action to take, the most practical solution to one of her most pressing survival needs. It was not that she felt guilt over it, but she wondered if she should. Blood magic and light magic were not seen as something that should mix. People argued on both sides of the debate, but generally it was thought that because blood magic came from injury and pain, it bordered on dark magic if it was not that outright. But she had let logic guide her decision and had not cared.

If she returned home—when she returned home—would she be a different person because of how she had survived? She did not want to be different. She did not want to be ruined.

Tecna knew she had to start forumlating her plan, but for a moment she closed her eyes and acknowledged the fear that had invaded every part of her being. Then she opened them again and put that aside.


	9. don't you get clever

_magix_

* * *

Being a year behind in her studies meant that the roommates who Roxy had spent the first few years of her moderately successful Alfea career with had graduated without her, and so when the new school year had started a few months ago she had met the new group of girls populating the suite. Chance, not choice, had roomed them all together, and while Roxy thought they were nice girls and good suitemates, they didn't have too much in common.

Roxy knew they probably didn't need some random, failing Earth girl as a roommate, so even though they weren't close, she was grateful to them for putting up with her.

"Hey Roxy, do you think Wizgiz would grade my essay earlier if I turn it in now?" Her roommate, Indigo of Popularis, looked over from her bed to where Roxy sat on her own. "My parents say they're cutting me off if I don't get up to a B in his class, and without some fortuitous timing, I'm not gonna recover by midterms, which means I'm not going to Solaria for break."

Roxy could never remember if Indigo was the fairy of writing or of words, only that she sometimes used random swaths of vocabulary that went over her head. She was pale with electric blue eyes and a pen always behind her ear. Roxy wondered if Indigo remembered what had happened with Tecna of Zenith almost four years ago. She wouldn't have been a student then, since she was two years below Roxy, but perhaps she had heard about it...

Roxy decided not to say anything about it. "Uh, maybe. He's pretty cool about that kind of thing."

"I just know I'm going to fail Palladium's midterm. I swore I would never go back in the reality chamber after freshman year!" Indigo ran her hands through her short, dark hair in frustration. "But...I guess that's what we get. I really thought...well, you would have at least gotten it by now. Not to be mean."

"I understand," said Roxy dully. Any student who was close to graduation without her Enchantix had to take extra classes with Palladium and Faragonda, and Palladium's midterm involved a single person exam in the reality chamber Roxy had barely made it through with the group project freshman year. To say she was worried would be an understatement.

Well, okay, she wasn't worried. It was more like she was distantly aware of her inevitable failure. She knew it should be a big deal. She knew it should really matter. It did really matter. She couldn't not graduate. There was literally nothing else left for her.

Her phone pinged. Oh, right! Brandon was picking her up. He was probably outside and she hadn't even—

No, the text was from her dad. _Hey kiddo. Do you know when your break is yet? Jake and Della are gonna visit with the kids._

Roxy put her phone in her bag. So her father's cousin and his wife were coming to visit for Christmas. And they would bring their kids, a bunch of rambunctious but well meaning little ruffians between the ages of twelve and seven. The house would probably be loud, and people would be laughing. Her dad liked Uncle Jake. He was an accountant by trade and a mechanic as a hobby and they talked about motorcycles and W-2 filing forms together. They would bring out the Christmas tree. The kids would make them get up early that on Christmas morning and open presents from Santa.

She did not want to see her dad and think about what she had done to him.

She did not want to see Uncle Mike or Aunt Della or his kids and laughingly say "it's a lot of work, but I'm having a good time! Lots of essays" when they asked her how she was doing in that fancy Canadian boarding school she had gotten into. She did not want to think about how they thought she was having a good time. She did not want to think of how happy she had been on Earth because then she would have to to think about the past three years.

Her phone pinged again and she cautiously took it back out, swiping her father's text off the screen to deal with later.

Finally, Brandon's text of _I'm outside_. She wasn't thinking about this right now. She grabbed a couple of other things to put into her bag. "I'll see you later."

"See you!" Indigo said amicably without looking up from her notepad, and Roxy hurried out into the courtyard.

* * *

Roxy and Brandon had gone to lunch, and had planned to watch a movie after, but Brandon got a call saying that he needed to come back to Redfountain in an hour so instead they went to his apartment to hang out.

Roxy hadn't been there many times before. Their casual thing had only really started at the end of last year, because they were already hanging out all the time. Initially Riven and Musa had always tagged along since they were the only of his friends who were still in Magix but they had started doing it less lately, and Roxy had come back early from summer break because summer kind of sucked now—all her friends from Earth were busy doing adult things and standing behind the hostess stand at her dad's bar made her think of the times when it had been fun to help him and they had felt like a team. And how they weren't that anymore, and her dad barely even knew that. Maybe he did. Sometimes he asked her "are you okay, Roxy?" or "what's wrong?" And the only words she had to answer with were "I'm fine."

She kind of wished someone would ask again. Anyone. Just say, "are you sure?"

But what would she even say to that? "I'm fine." Again. _And they've already asked once and you've got nothing to say because you don't have any words, so could you stop being so whiny, Roxy, for once, and so fucking selfish, and just get on with your fucking life? This is all your fault._

Brandon was nice, and upbeat, and funny, and being with him on a date made Roxy feel refreshingly normal, like maybe she hadn't wasted literal years of her life being absolutely miserable, and they both liked dogs.

And on the Bad Night, he had wrapped his cape around her shoulders.

It had been raining, and she had been screaming and screaming, and Bloom was holding her tightly, more to restrain her than to comfort her, because she had beat the ground until a sharp rock had made her hand bleed. She couldn't feel the pain but she could see the blood dripping on her arm. And Bloom kept saying something that Roxy couldn't remember, something to try and make her calm down, and Roxy could barely hear over her own screaming until her breath caught in her throat and she started coughing and crying. And she had shivered from the cold as Bloom cautiously loosened her grip, and Brandon had quietly said, "here," and wrapped his cape around her shoulders. And she hadn't realized how cold she had been until it wasn't raining on her anymore. And now she was sobbing into Bloom's shoulder, saying, "my mom, my mom, my mom," and then a bunch of nonsense that even she couldn't understand.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed like that because after that things were more of a blur. Her crystal clear memory of the worst of the Bad Night got spotty after that. She vaguely remembered hearing herself stop crying as though she were outside her body. She had walked, or had someone carried her to the palace? She remembered hearing people talking around her but it was like she was lying down and they were talking above her head. She couldn't make out their words. And eventually it was morning. She couldn't remember sleeping, but she also couldn't remember not sleeping.

Morning was not better. Nothing was better ever again. That was when she had cut her hair off, in the blended together days and nights after the Bad Night.

So now Roxy had short hair and she and Brandon were dating.

She wasn't exactly sure what they were supposed to do when they just hung out. When they had lunch or they were with other people that was one thing, but sometimes she suspected that it was only Brandon's easy charm which kept things from feeling completely awkward whenever it was just the two of them. But thank goodness he knew how to carry a conversation most of the time.

But at the moment Brandon was getting them both water, so Roxy just sat on his couch and glanced at him behind her, head in his refrigerator, and then looked back, and had nothing to say so she picked up the remote and turned on the television. She didn't really know how to change channels on Magix remotes; most technology was like that here, and the things that were vaguely familiar were the most frustrating. So she just let it play to whatever it had been left on—an Eraklyonian news station, she saw by the logo in the corner. Something about a state visit being held at the royal palace. King Erendor and Queen Samara flashed across the screen unsmilingly. Brandon came in and glanced at the display with a frown.

"That reminds me I need to call my dad about visiting during break. Where are you going this summer?"

She had been thinking about that a lot recently. At least during midterm break she could stay in her dorm. But regardless of whether or not she graduated from Alfea this summer, she wouldn't have it as a place to come back early to or stay late at. The idea of spending all summer in Gardenia made her distantly sad. "Bloom said her apartment in Eraklyon is going to be empty most of the summer and I'm welcome to stay the whole time." It was out of pity, Roxy knew, but she also knew that Bloom was the only other person in the universe who might almost understand how she felt about visiting home.

Of course, they weren't the same. It wasn't Bloom's fault her parents were dead and her Earth parents understood everything she was.

After a minute she realized that that meant they were going to be on the same planet next summer and she leapt to justify it. "It's just the thing that made the most sense to me at the time. I mean, I don't really know what I'll be doing next summer anyway. We don't have to—" she broke it off. What had she been going to say? _We don't have to see each other?_ Wow, she was a terrible girlfriend. "I know you have that clinic back here for the first month." Brandon's break didn't start until Redfountain summer classes ended.

He nodded. It didn't seem like he had noticed the awkwardness of her phrasing and her tone.

The news anchor intoned, "joining them but not representing a sovereign body will be Princess Bloom of Sparx, Prince Sky of Eraklyon, the Sage of Eirene—"

Brandon shut the TV off and then it was quiet.

"So how was Aisha's party?" He asked her finally, and her mind raced with positive words to describe it.

"...it was fun. We had fun. We learned this card game called Primevist. I didn't really get it. Musa and Riven got in a fight and then we all went to bed."

"Ha, that sounds about right," said Brandon, almost smiling.

Roxy looked at him, and then the wall, and back to him. "And Musa and Aisha said some stuff about the Omega Dimension."

His expression didn't change. "Oh, yeah? What about?"

"That you guys had a friend that died there."

He still didn't look upset like Aisha had. "Yeah. It's not something they like to talk about. But it's been in the news a lot recently, on everybody's mind."

Except Roxy's, because Roxy didn't watch the news, because most of her still thought of Magix as an insane, Alice in Wonderland type place she was visiting for a second, and Earth was her real home, no matter how much that wasn't really true anymore. At least, Earth wasn't her real home. But Magix wasn't really either.

"I'm kind of surprised I didn't know about it," she said hesitantly.

Brandon shrugged. "I mean, there wasn't really time to bring it up when we first met you," he said reasonably. "And then there was no reason to, like, sit you down and have a serious talk. It wasn't really...relevant to you. We weren't trying to keep it a secret."

"I know," said Roxy, but that didn't mean anything to her. That didn't help her understand anything. That didn't get the image of that girl out of her mind. So even though Brandon had looked away as though thinking of another conversation topic, she said, "Aisha said that Timmy still thinks she's alive. In Omega."

Now Brandon's lips tightened for a second and she knew that this was what wore on him. "Yeah, he does. But he's wrong. He just can't accept that. I think it's part grief and part being used to being the smartest guy in the room. Now he thinks he's never wrong." There was just a touch of annoyance in his tone, but his eyes were sadder than anything else.

Roxy knew she should leave it alone now. She knew everything she needed to exist in their world; now she would never bring up a sensitive topic accidentally or reference something unthinkingly. This was all that was necessary to know.

But she felt like she couldn't bring herself to quit it. Distantly she remembered shopping trips with Earth friends where she would spend all of her allowance on thing after thing despite her resolution to save the rest of her money, and this felt like that. "But didn't they send search parties?"

Brandon gave a deep, very tired sigh. Roxy knew she was spending his patience faster than she ever had wasted her allowance. "Yeah. Aside from us going seven times, Magix lead three searches. Well, four, technically, but the fourth one was to collect the bodies of the third search party. After that, they decided to call it off."

"But no one ever found her body."

"Yeah. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes you don't find the body. People always want to think that means that someone's alive, and usually it doesn't. They found her blood in the snow!"

"Enough to kill her?" Immediately after she said it she realized she hadn't considered her words at all. She was just blurting out her thoughts now as soon as she got them.

"Enough to make it pretty hard to get out of there. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Look at this, Roxy." He ran his hand lightly over the dark scar down his arm. "This is the best they could do with it, even with healing magic. I got that the fourth time we went down there. And I still went back down there twice because we said that if she was alive, we were going to find her."

"I thought you got hurt fighting an icewraith," Roxy said in a low voice. It wasn't a terrible scar, at least, not now as she looked at it. He had mentioned the icewraith to her last year. His tone had been almost joking, like it was a misadventure. Now it rung in her ears like a half-lie.

"I did," he said flatly. "In the Omega Dimension. Five Specialists, five Enchantix fairies, and we barely made it out alive. And Tecna was alone."

Then he turned away, and was quiet for a long time.

She felt regret, mixed with an awful satisfaction, lodge itself into a lump at the very back of her throat. She shouldn't have said anything. She couldn't be entirely sorry because she had to know. But she knew she should be. "I'm sorry," she said, haltingly, her voice sounding strange and small in the silence. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

Brandon still didn't say anything. She felt guilt settle into her whole being.

Finally he nodded. "I know. It's fine. It's fine."

"I'm gonna head out," Roxy said quietly.

"Okay," he said. "I'll call you later."

"Sounds good," she said and left immediately.

* * *

 _imperial palace_

 _eraklyon_

* * *

Amidst the pain of losing one of your friends and the arguably worse pain of losing the rest of them even when they're right there, close enough to touch, and sending Valtor back to whatever hell fairies are supposed to believe in where he belonged, Bloom also got called to Faragonda's office one afternoon and told that she had been officially recognized as the daughter of Oritel and Meryem, claimant to the throne of Sparx. She had not known this was something you had to apply for. But Stella and Tecna had. Stella had mentioned it nonchalantly to her one day at the beginning of the year and Bloom hadn't really understood and forgotten about it. Tecna had compiled and sent the files to the required governments and lawyers. Then the two of them hadn't mentioned it again, caught up with the shitstorm Valtor had ignited, and in the aftermath she supposed Stella had forgotten.

And now, months later, when she was beginning to get used to how things were, and stopped passing papers back to empty desks and wondering, just for a second, why the simple sounds of her roommates going about their lives sounded so different, there was a letter from whoever was minding her Sparx parents' estate. They believed her. (How could they not? Who else had the Dragon? But whatever.) She was now officially the princess of a hunk of ice and snow, and a handful of scattered people who had moved away sometime before the planet had been destroyed.

And it turned out her parents had been pretty rich. So she also had more money than she could ever need, hooray!

So when Sky had said that she should stay on Eraklyon with him, she hadn't really had any better ideas for what to do with her time. You can't guard a thing that's already dead, so there's not much point to being guardian fairy of Sparx. Same with ruling when you have no subjects and no habitable planet. So she had got an apartment on Eraklyon, and (likely after Sky had bothered her about it) Samara unenthusiastically offered her a place in the Eraklyonian Royal Household. What that meant, essentially, was that she helped plan balls and dinners and stuff.

She did this in tandem with Princess Zinaide, who was Sky's older cousin, Samara's favorite niece, and who seemed to resent Bloom for existing. Samara did too, but she was slightly more clever in her backhanded compliments. Princess Zinaide (who had never told Bloom to just call her Zinaide in the three years Bloom had known her) seemed to resent Bloom for not having grown up with all the rules and etiquette that had been impressed upon her, and she expressed this resentment in a kind of cold, malicious groveling. At least once a day Princess Zinaide managed to embarrass her with her bowing and scraping, all while speaking to Bloom like she was a particularly stupid child.

Today, Zinaide was getting on her nerves even worse than usual as they went over the final preparations for the state dinner being held tomorrow night. Bloom frowned at the cross-outs on the seating arrangements which she had already gotten approved by Samara. "What's this?" She asked, glancing across the large marble table they were working at over to Zinaide. "I thought I was sitting next to Sky and General Deren."

"I had to change it," said Zinaide nonchalantly. "The Queen of Kast is coming now. She changed the dates for her royal progress."

Bloom scowled. "If the queen of Kast is there I don't want to go." Kast was a witch planet with a shady history, and she didn't want to have to make smalltalk with Queen Sorokina all night. Maybe she could just stay behind the scenes.

"Well, you don't have a choice," snapped Zinaide. "You're representing Eraklyon and Sparx."

"Kast is a terrible planet—dark magic, threats of war. She was one of the people who voted to destroy the Omega Dimension. I don't know why she was even invited."

"I thought you wanted that place destroyed," Zinaide said, sounding uninterested. "Well, you'll have to put that aside for just one evening and get along with her. She's important and volatile and it's vital we make a good impression now that she's become queen. And she specifically mentioned she was excited to meet with you."

"Why would she do that?"

"Honestly?" Zinaide frowned. "I do not know. But I expect it has something to do with your planet. Kast was aligned with the Ancestresses in the war, you know. It was a discreet thing, not official, but everyone knows. She might rub it in your face—she's not a kind person. Unfortunate, but you'll have to deal with it for the sake of diplomacy."

"Yeah, I'm not doing that."

"Not doing what?"

She and Zinaide both turned around to see Sky coming into the study, a smile on his face. She couldn't help but be happy to see him, regardless of the frustration that was welling up inside her now. He came to stand next to her and put an arm around her as he looked down at the seating. "Hey, I thought we were sitting with Deren."

Bloom looked significantly at Zinaide, but she didn't seem troubled. "Sorokina of Kast said that she wanted to meet Bloom, so Her Majesty changed the seating this morning."

Sky made a face and pulled her closer. "That's too bad. But I'm sure you'll still do great."

"I was just telling Princess Zinaide that I'm not going to the dinner if the Queen of Kast is going to be there."

Now Sky's expression was of concern. "Uh, why?"

"Because she supports the Ancestresses, for one? And because everyone knows Kast is a terrible place that spouts dark magic and intimidates its neighbors. And I heard she poisoned her brother so she could be queen."

Sky winced. "I mean, it's likely. But if you don't go to the dinner it's going to send a bad message. She'll be insulted."

"She should be insulted," Bloom replied. At some point Sky had let her go, or she had stepped away from him, and now she was standing facing him. "She's doing bad things to people."

"Okay, I get that she's horrible, but I really don't understand why we can't just deal with it for one night." Sky glanced away with some annoyance, and that always set something off in her. She wasn't sure if it was desperation to prove her point or indignation that he thought she was wrong, but she could already feel her mouth speeding ahead of her brain.

"Listening to people I don't like is one thing. But I'm not going to let her think that's an alright way to treat people! It's morally wrong."

"It's morally wrong to do something that will only benefit our people? It's a dinner, Bloom, and it's to celebrate peace."

"They're your people, Sky," she muttered, and he tossed his hands in the air. Now he was angry.

"As you so often remind me."

"It doesn't even matter if I'm there or not. No one cares about the princess of a dead planet, except for some witch queen who just wants to torture me." She wasn't actually important. Nothing she did actually mattered anymore. She was just like a doll. Dolls could miss one dinner.

"My _mother_ is going to care, Bloom, because all of this stuff that you do just confirms to her that you're not prepared to be queen, which—"

The words stung more than they should have, probably because he was right. "What the hell is 'all of this stuff', Sky?"

"I don't want to get into it right now, that's not the point. The point is—"

"I think the point is that you agree with her!" It wasn't like Bloom didn't. But knowing that Sky probably thought the same things about her as she did about herself...hurt. In a stupid, unnecessary way.

"Would you let me finish, please? Would you just let me finish one sentence? I don't agree with her. But you know that if you don't go, there's gonna be someone sitting next to me who you wouldn't want there, and I'm sorry, I'm not going to blame myself for that."

Bloom felt her thoughts stop cold. "Are you talking about her?"

"I am talking about literally anyone my mother has thrown at me since I said I planned to marry you. Yes, that includes Diaspro. Don't be mad at me about it, just know that that's what going to happen and I don't need you freaking out about it! Don't go. She will. And—"

"Is that really what you're going to say? Are you really going to threaten me with her? And then you say that I'm going to freak out, which is just...preempting my freak out, so now of course I'm going to be upset, because I'm a _person_ and I get upset...!"

Sky wasn't yelling at her. His voice was forceful and projecting, not uncontrolled. And somehow that made her feel worse. He was using his prince voice on her. "I'm not threatening you with anything. Which you might realize if you let me finish one fucking sentence! Whenever she is at a party or even mentioned in conversation, you lose your mind. And I've come to accept that you're just never going to let it go, but that means—"

"I'm not talking about this anymore! I'm not talking about this anymore." She couldn't stand to be having this conversation—this fight—anymore, because the feeling of knowing she was messing everything up and yet not being able to stop it was making her sick, and she had to be away from everything.

Without waiting for a reply she turned and headed for the room she had at the palace. As she hurried down the hall she heard Princess Ziniade's voice carry from the room she had just left.

"She's upset again. Oh, dear. Well, if she's not going I'll talk to Her Majesty about rearranging some things."

Bloom stifled a very bad word and didn't even slam her bedroom door. Instead she threw herself on her bed and screamed into her pillow until her whole throat hurt.

* * *

 ***updates literally twice in two years***

 ***hits people with a 5000 word chapter***

 **sorry guys i'm a mess. i think i update more regularly when i have huge, future-affecting projects to work on because then i can ignore them and do this instead. hope you guys enjoy.**


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